Four who never were, and one who always was
by NatteryakToad
Summary: A series of one shots, background for my Dudley's Daughter series, the reason why Dudley is older than Harry, but Dudley's only daughter is the same age as the Potter's youngest child.
1. Matthew

**Matthew**

Dudley and Samantha Dursley hadn't even been married a year when they found out Samantha was expecting a baby. Everyone said they were moving too fast, but they didn't think so – they would be a proper family now, with their son. It was way too early to tell the gender, but Samantha was convinced she was carrying a boy, and Dudley guessed his wife must be right – she was the one who was pregnant.

So it was a shock to both of them, when Samantha woke her husband up on a cold February morning to tell him that she was bleeding. Dudley drove her to the hospital as fast as they could, but by the time they got there it was already too late. Dudley still remembers the look on the young doctors face when he told them the news that nobody wants to year – that their precious baby was no more.

They named him Matthew, even though they'd never found out exactly whether he was a boy or a girl, and cried as though their hearts might break.


	2. Miriam

**Miriam**

After Matthew, Dudley and Samantha were almost too afraid to try again. Of course they wanted children, but...the pain of losing Matthew had been unbearable – how could they ever go through that again.

So when she did fall pregnant, Samantha almost didn't tell Dudley. Just in case. Better to wait until she was sure, wait until they were past the point where miscarriage was a worry. But then Dudley found the test, and they celebrated. Soberly. Because they didn't want to hope too much.

Dudley and Samantha decided not to tell anyone else until they were sure, though. They still had baby things their friends and family had brought for Matthew, and couldn't bear to go through all that again. After all, Dudley said, they could always use the stuff they'd put away for Matthew. Samantha didn't agree – just as she'd been certain Matthew was a boy, so certain was she that this baby was a girl.

When Samantha woke Dudley up in the middle of the night to tell him she was losing their daughter too, it was like a bad dream – reliving an old nightmare. He took her to the hospital, of course, but all they could do was confirm the inevitable – their daughter, whom they named Miriam, was gone. And they mourned again, for the daughter they'd never really had.


	3. Mandy

**Mandy**

Dudley and Samantha had decided to wait for several years before they – if ever they – tried for another baby, and so it came as a shock for Samantha when, just three months after they lost Miriam, she found herself feeling nauseous in the mornings – a tell-tale sign of pregnancy. She couldn't – she wasn't ready, wasn't ready to lose another part of herself.

This time, Dudley and Samantha were more determined than ever to fight for their baby. They celebrated every day as a milestone, one more day that they got to hold on to their daughter. And when they reached a miraculous sixteen weeks – two weeks longer than they'd had either Matthew or Miriam – they told their families. They allowed themselves to hope.

At the next ultrasound – a place they could never have dreamed they'd reach – they decided to find out the gender. Samantha guessed it was a boy, but Dudley said girl, and he was right. They named her right there and then – Mandy. Samantha did everything she could to take care of herself and Mandy – she was determined that she wouldn't do anything to put her unborn daughter at risk. Mandy had made it so far – she wasn't about to lose her now.

But she was, and at twenty-four weeks, Dudley and Samantha found out that their daughter a heart defect. She only had a 20% chance of making it to birth, and even if she got that far, the survival rate beyond two years for this kind of defect was only 50/50.

Dudley and Samantha were devastated – but more determined than ever that their daughter should live. So what if only one in ten babies with this diagnosis made it to their second birthday? Mandy would be that one.

After living two months with the awful uncertainty of their daughter's condition, at the thirty-two week scan, it was the job of the same young doctor who'd told them Matthew hadn't made it – now not so young – to tell them that Mandy's little heart was no longer beating.

Samantha had to carry Mandy for another six weeks – and put up with the "oooh how far along are you?" "do you know if it's a boy or a girl?" from well-meaning strangers - before she gave birth to her stillborn daughter, and then she and Dudley had to do the unthinkable – burry their new-born daughter, and grieve all over again.


	4. Michael

**Michael**

Two years after they buried Mandy, Dudley and Samantha decided that they had to try again. All they wanted was a baby to hold, and to keep, and the heartbreak of losing three babies – Matthew, Miriam and Mandy – had only confirmed that.

This time the circumstances looked good. They made it past twelve weeks, then sixteen, then they found out they were expecting a boy. Michael. As the weeks wore on, and Samantha's belly grew larger, she and Dudley hardly dared hope that, perhaps, this baby would be the one they were allowed to keep.

They began to buy things for their son, as Samantha entered into her third trimester, and planned baby showers, and picked out colours for the nursery, all the time hoping against hope that Michael would be the baby who would be born, not dead, but alive, alive and kicking, and ready to face the world.

On a warm July day, Michael was indeed born, alive, not kicking, but alive. Dudley and Samantha held their son, and hardly dared believe that they'd made it – they were parents to a healthy baby boy. They called their parents, and took photos – hundreds, thousands of photos – of them and their boy.

It was several weeks later that Samantha began to notice her son wasn't like other babies. He was very quiet – other mums called him a "good baby". He rarely tried to move – not even to move his head to see where his parents had gone if they laid him down in his cot. Sometimes he seemed to be having problems breathing, and she noticed that whilst other babies his age would hold themselves erect when they were lifted, Michael was always limp and floppy.

At first, Samantha ignored these symptoms. There was nothing wrong with Michael – he'd made it, hadn't he? He'd not only got to birth, but beyond. But when Dudley noticed the problems too, they decided to take their little boy to the hospital, to find out what was wrong with him.

A few tests were run, and then the doctors wanted to take blood samples from Dudley and Samantha. The new parents were confused – surely their son just had a virus or something, why wasn't he just being given antibiotics or something?

Six hours after their first arrived at the hospital, Dudley and Samantha got the diagnosis – Michael had Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a disease for which they were both carriers. They were still waiting on conformation of whether he had type I or type II – if it were type II then he would probably live to adulthood, but if he had type I SMA, then his chances were similar to Mandy's; he wasn't likely to make it past age two.

A day later, the verdict was back: Michael had SMA type I, and Dudley and Samantha were faced with losing the little boy whom they'd thought was their miracle.

Slowly, Dudley and Samantha adjusted to having a terminally ill child, coming to terms with the fact that the other milestones, which other parents took for granted – rolling over, sitting up, crawling, even first steps – were never to be for their son, who probably wouldn't even be able to lift his head without assistance. They bought all the specialist equipment Michael needed to keep comfortable, including a special car seat which made breathing easier than a traditional car seat. They began celebrating every day as a milestone, just like they had as Mandy had made her journey towards birth, eating cupcakes every day, for every day that Michael managed to hold onto life.

Then end came on October 12th, when Michael was 73 days old, when his lungs collapsed and he went into cardiac arrest, and was pronounced dead upon arrival in hospital. And once again, Dudley and Samantha had to do the unthinkable, and bury their baby boy next to their baby girl.

* * *

If you'd like some more information about SMA here are some websites:

. /disorders/sma/detail_

And the blog where I first found out about SMA:

. /


	5. Mia

**Mia**

After Michael, Dudley and Samantha decided they were both done losing babies. As much as they wanted to be parents for longer than the 73 days they had Michael for, they couldn't bear to go through that loss again.

So when, less than 18 months after they buried Michael, Samantha found out she was pregnant, she didn't know what to do. How could she be pregnant? – they had been taking precautions. Dudley said that this baby was already a miracle, being conceived against the odds, so maybe they'd survive against the odds as well. It looked like they'd been given one last shot at parenthood, and they were going to cling to it with every last fibre of their being.

At the 18 week scan they found out they were having a girl, and also got her tested for SMA – there was only a 1 in 4 chance she'd have the disease, but 1 in 4 was plenty enough for Michael to be affected, so they had to be sure. A painstaking week later, they found out that, although their daughter was a carrier for SMA, she was not affected with the dreadful disease which claimed her brother's life.

All through the pregnancy, both Dudley and Samantha hardly dared hope that their daughter would be born, and be born healthy. After two miscarriages, a stillbirth and then losing Michael at less than three months, they were so worried that something would go wrong.

But it didn't. Mia Samantha Dursley was born, alive (and kicking!) on the 12th of October, exactly two years after her older brother took his last breath. For the first few months, Dudley and Samantha felt like they were walking on eggshells, terrified that they'd do something wrong, and have their daughter torn away from them. But slowly they realised they weren't going to do anything wrong and they weren't going to lose Mia.

Dudley and Samantha decided that they weren't going to tell Mia about her older brothers and sisters, because they didn't want her living under their shadows, trying to live all five of their lives, rather than just her own. So her birthday was never marred by memories of Michael's death, of trips to her brother's graveside. And if there were four separate days in the year on which Dudley and Samantha mourned, they did it in private.

In some ways, it felt like losing Mia when it turned out she was a witch, and Dudley and Samantha packed her off on the train to Hogwarts, but they soon learnt not to look at it that way. Their daughter was enjoying her life to the full, and that's all they ever wanted for any of their children. They never expected a child of theirs to live long enough to go to school, to make friends, to pass exams, to fall in love...

And yet here Dudley is, walking his daughter down the aisle to get married to the love of her life. And part of him feels like he's losing his daughter, his baby girl - just like he lost Mathew, and Miriam, and Mandy and Michael – to this other man, but then part of him knows that this is what his whole life has been leading up to this point.

He knows that sometime soon he'll have to tell his daughter about her siblings – her husband will have to be tested for SMA because if he's a carrier too then they'll have a 1 in 4 chance of having a child with SMA. But Dudley's not going to worry about that right now, because he's focusing on his daughter, marrying the love of her life. And he realises that he isn't losing Mia, he's giving her away. And that makes all the difference.


End file.
